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Template talk:Sidebar species
Data fields We could probably add a couple of optional data fields to the sidebar along the lines of other sidebars on MA. These could include "homeworld", "type" (i.e. "humanoid" for most, but some were designated as "class 5 humanoid", "Proto-Vulcan humanoid" etc.), and maybe "status" (a few are extinct). In regards to placement, I was thinking between the first image and the others, though we could of course play around with that. Thoughts?– Cleanse ( talk | ) 05:57, January 29, 2010 (UTC) :Conditional would be the key part to that, as the layout of the species articles isn't anywhere near as uniform as starships or characters are. For instence, the Vulcan article's images seem to be in the order they are mentioned in the article, instead of the more logical order for a sidebar "proper". :As for text to image placement, it would probably be best if any image placed over the text is a logo/emblem or the only image of a species, as the whole point of having this many images is to show as many as possible without any "bias" that the "better" placement might imply. :PS, the one option I left out when making this that hasn't been mentioned already is "Location", by Quadrant, instead of homeworld. - 06:36, January 29, 2010 (UTC) ::I think that, if we want to keep that, we should move this to a more neutral title like, for example "Sidebar image gallery", and not mix it with functionality for a specific page type. On the other hand, if we want to make this a "species only" sidebar, we should think about image placement again. Does it really make sense for a sidebar to contain seven images? - whenever I see one of those, I have to think about how ugly that really looks on the page. ::I can see the reasoning - we want to show different aspects of a species: young and old, male and female. But still, these could either be arranged in the text or, if not, at least be smaller in a species sidebar. What about having one image at the top, and allowing a smallish gallery of either two (one line, two next to each other), or four (2x2) additional images instead? -- Cid Highwind 07:42, January 29, 2010 (UTC) :The only problem I have with either option, adding text or image format changes, is currently, we would be using both. Vulcan is the make or break example for me, as the top part of the article could be changed to a more "standard" sidebar with images in the text without too much effort. The second sidebar however, is defiantly just a image sidebar, and trying to spread the images out in the text is going to lead to reduced readability as the text gets squashed between the images. If we can get it to work on that page, I don't see too many problems with any of the others, though to be honest, I'm leaning towards keeping this and making another, proper, sidebar for species. I'll play around with some other formats today either way. - 14:25, January 29, 2010 (UTC) ::An alternative might be to actually remove some images. It definitely looks as if not all are necessary. Consider the top sidebar, for example: ::*two old/male Vulcans ::*two young/female Vulcans ::*one medium-aged/male "50%" Vulcan ::*one first contact image that wouldn't need to be in a "species" image gallery, anway ::At least three (one old/male, one female, first contact), if not four (Spock), of those could be removed without making the article less informative - or, if we follow the idea of using smaller "characteristic" images in the top sidebar, could be replaced with Tuvok (black male Vulcan) and perhaps a new Vulcan child image (which is completely missing at the moment). That leaves 5 physiology/biology images in the second sidebar, which could either be added to the text (I don't believe we can't place at least three without formatting problems), or in a proper image gallery. -- Cid Highwind 15:49, January 29, 2010 (UTC) :::I'm of the mind that the sidebar should contain a really short list of items that are commonly expected to be of interest to the reader and consistent across a wide range of similar articles. Ships stats/Character bios/publisher info and the like. Images should only be used in the sidebar as an example of the most common of something (say the enterprise-d for a galaxy class article) or the most recent image of a character and so forth. Any more than two images in a sidebar is too many. Other images relevant to the article should be placed in the appropriate section within the articles. The Vulcan example is one that is overboard, in my opinion. (Especially with a second sidebar with the physiology section) Just leave a vulcan at the top and maybe another one (say opposite gender) and leave the rest in the article. — Morder (talk) 16:12, January 29, 2010 (UTC) Alternative design I would think we should probably have bio info on this sidebar rather than images - something like: *Planet origin *Population *Federation member *Extinct and so forth - this would be a much better sidebar than just a list of images. — Morder (talk) 16:15, January 29, 2010 (UTC)